


We can't go wrong, you've got full rights to me

by astrosaur



Series: because we're allowed to be proud [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Bill Denbrough is an amateur troll, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Little Shit, M/M, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, but he gets his comeuppance because
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:33:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23350255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrosaur/pseuds/astrosaur
Summary: Let's be honest. Bill brought this on to himself by having Eddie and Richie watch his house while he's away.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: because we're allowed to be proud [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679452
Comments: 8
Kudos: 132





	We can't go wrong, you've got full rights to me

**Author's Note:**

> Follows [Let's add this to the gay agenda](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23035081), so this will make more sense if you've read that. How much more sense? That's debatable.

Richie should not begrudge the fact that he and Eddie must spend their next free weekend doing Bill a favor. He’s got at least three reasons not to.

Reason one: there are far worse weekend plans than holing up with an ex-ex-friend who has inexplicably accepted the position of ex-ex-friend: Exclusive Bonus Edition™ ( _comes with extra feels!_ )

Now, to be clear, Eddie took on the job description – not the title. That’s strictly Richie’s provisional label for them. He’s aware that they’ll probably need tidier nomenclature at some point. The point is, he is down to clown with his EEF:EBE™( _CWEF!_ ), under any urban dictionary definition of the term, for any earthly duration of time.

Reason two: Bill is also an ex-ex-friend. He is of the Regular Edition variety, but is important nonetheless.

And reason three: Richie owes Bill for his magnanimous act of never having been Eddie’s boyfriend.

All that being said, it’s barely been two months since he’d used up a weekend to fulfill Mike’s request. Richie doesn’t regret a single second he’d spent supporting Adrian and Don’s pride event in Maine, a.k.a. their elaborate middle finger to their bigoted attackers. But if he keeps this up, he’s going to get a reputation for hopping around state to state, providing unpaid labor.

Eddie argued that house sitting for Bill and Georgie doesn’t count as labor, which Richie rebuts with his personal definition of the word.

He bemoans Eddie’s borderline militaristic approach to friendship, nurturing his grievances up to the moment that they report for duty. “We could be cuddling in my couch instead of Bill’s if you weren’t so buddy-whipped.”

“Interesting way to say ‘being nice,’” says Eddie.

“Oh, speaking of cuddling. If any amorous activity takes place, both participants must be fully clothed,” Bill proclaims. “Add that to the list.”

Georgie mouths “amorous” dubiously to himself, but he obediently jots down item number seventeen on Bill’s steadily multiplying house rules. “Aaaand done. Can we go now? I don’t want to hit traffic and miss our flight.”

Richie breaks out his British-isms for the occasion. “Blimey! Enough faffing about then, time for you blokes to away across the pond. You leave Chez Denbrough – nay, the _Den-of-Bros_ – in capable hands. I speak from personal experience, having had both pairs of hands on my person.”

“Keep that up and the only future contact you can expect from my hands involves castration,” Eddie snarks with a mock-sweet smile.

“Get yourself a man that can get your blood pumping with warnings of genital mutilation,” Richie swoons. He switches back to a British accent when he addresses the Denbroughs. “Go on, lads, we’ve got your ickle guidelines.”

“Richie, they’re not guidelines, they’re rules,” Bill corrects, only slightly undermined by Georgie’s amused chuckles. Thwarted by his brother’s failing sense of humor, he beseeches Eddie. “It’s not too late to back out, you know.”

Eddie furrows his brows. “I told you I’d do this months ago. It’s not a problem.”

“No, I mean it’s not too late for you to find a legitimate adult to consort with.”

It’s disconcerting how quickly Bill abandons his post as Richie’s (Regular Edition) friend to take on the mantle of Eddie’s self-appointed guardian. “So character assassination is tolerated in your home, but nipple-to-nipple embraces are discouraged?” Richie demands.

“Not discouraged. Prohibited,” Bill stresses.

Eddie turns to Georgie expectantly and the younger man promptly deflects. “What? Don’t look at me.”

“This is your house, too,” Eddie says. “You can tell your brother when he’s being a pain in the ass.”

The glare Bill sends to Eddie has _Et tu, Brute_ written all over it. “What, did Richie suck your brains _and_ your loyalty out your dick?”

“I sure as shit will try in the next few days,” Richie vows.

Eddie practically scintillates with the ferocity of his temple-to-neck flush, making trembling little fists by his sides. “I can’t– I don’t know which one of you to yell at first.”

“See, Eddie, if anyone’s getting in the middle of this, it has to be you. You’re Bill’s best friend and Richie’s boy…” Georgie looks to Richie for guidance and is met with a helpless shrug. “…thing?”

“Boything?” Eddie echoes with arched disapproval. It’s a significant step in the right direction, compared to his visceral revulsion when Richie lovingly referred to him as his EEF:EBE™( _CWEF!_ ).

“Let’s recap,” Richie says. “After raising tens of thousands of dollars for LGBTQ youth in our hometown, Mr. Shining Armor over there pulls a 180, wishes to mandate society’s most outdated attitudes within his very own walls. Wishes to persecute us in his own backyard.” He gestures at Bill with the flair of an off-off-Broadway actor. “This man aims to prevent my ‘boything’ and I from celebrating the intimacy we deserve. To keep my enormous—”

“Richie,” Eddie warns.

“—affection,” Richie pauses long enough for Eddie to release his stockpiled breath before finishing, “in my pants.”

“Ugh!”

“Not letting us consummate our big gay love is peak straighty bullshit. ‘Home of Bill and George’, more like Home of Phobia!”

Georgie raises his hand. “I asked to be excluded from this narrative.”

Richie shakes his head in disapproval. “This spectator mentality is so far from woke. You may as well be in a cishet coma.”

“He reads one pamphlet from Adrian’s booth and he thinks he’s Barbara Gittings,” Eddie mutters.

While still visibly put-off by Eddie’s rejecting his gallantry, Bill seizes the opportunity to pursue his case for greener pastures. “You see? Do you really want to settle for a guy who goes after Georgie like that?”

“I’m teaching your brother how to be an ally!” Richie argues, unable to tell if Bill’s fucking with him or if this is a bona fide sabotage.

Bill doesn’t relent. “You can still change your mind, Eddie. Remember the guy I told you about, the one from my gym? He’s only a year or two younger than us and – bonus points – he didn’t out you to your mom.”

Richie bristles at the direct hit. “You fuck your gym buddy then, lord knows you need to get laid.”

And Eddie, best boything one can ask for, stands up for him. “Richie and I have worked that out. We’re not twelve anymore, stop fighting my fucking battles for me.”

Even Georgie meanders to Richie’s side. “I thought you said it was tacky to give my number at the gym?”

“Aha!” crows Richie. “Not only does that make you a hypocrite, that also makes you a homophobe, and—” He covers Eddie’s ears, hands bookending Eddie’s head. His voice drops to a whisper. “—nobody likes a self-hating homo. Keep that to yourselves, though. This one hasn’t gotten the memo that his attraction to me goes against the laws of nature.”

Eddie yanks at Richie’s wrists, tugging them around him so that Richie’s arms drape over him like a bountifully hairy shawl. “Really, you guys are welcome to fuck off immediately, thanks.”

“Anyway, the two situations are completely different,” Bill continues against Eddie’s express instructions. “I’m not bartering Eddie’s chance at a proper future husband so that Georgie can accommodate solicitations from a treadmill.”

“I said, that’s enough!” Eddie says over Georgie’s protests. He addresses them accordingly: “No more big-brothering or best friending!” pointing to Bill and “no more ‘boything’-ing!” glaring over his shoulder at Richie. He falters, then opts not to leave Georgie out. “And no more cruising for gym-bunnies in front of family members!”

=

The dictator’s manifesto begins with Bill’s strictest decree. The rule above all rules, the harbinger of oppression, the mother of commandments: Eddie is not permitted within three feet of the stove, oven, microwave, and toaster. It happens to be the lone directive that Richie has no qualms adhering to, crucial as it is to their continued existence.

They end up ordering delivery from a nearby Italian restaurant, after Richie endures a longwinded tirade on the treachery of simple carbohydrates. Despite having no strong dining preference, Richie fights tooth and nail for the privilege of choosing the restaurant. It may or may not be for the sole purpose of telling Eddie that “for dessert, I’ll take another helping of Spaghetti and his meatballs all over my face.”

“Okay? Go for it. I bought the cookies you like, but if—” Eddie cuts himself off, taking in Richie’s leer. “Oh. You’re so disgusting.”

“For you? Pathologically.” Richie throws in a wink for good measure.

“You based your meal choice around one dumbass punchline, didn’t you?”

“It’s never been more worth it.” Richie takes Eddie’s hands in his, clasping them over the dinner table. “So how about you and I show Bill’s bedroom what it’s been deprived of since he bought this house?”

Eddie raises his eyebrows, etching profound lines into his forehead. “He’s a workaholic but even he’s slept in his bed before.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant.” Eddie’s openly condescending tone is forgiven when he begins to fondle Richie’s hand, analyzing the width of his palm and the girth of his fingers like he’s taking measurements through touch alone. “And that’s not happening.”

Richie shrinks back in horror. “What- what? Don’t tell me you’re considering legitimizing Bill’s tyranny.”

“Look, I hate his rules as much as you do, but I can hardly blame him. I wouldn’t want any of my friends getting it on where I sleep, either.”

“Oh come on, I’ll wash his fucking sheets!” Richie doesn’t buckle under the naked lack of faith that Eddie’s telegraphing. “I will! Did I not wash and seal up everything I own, vacuum every piece of furniture I have, all so you’d stay the night at my place? ‘Cause you wouldn’t take my word for it that I didn’t have bedbugs? After that, you think I can’t haul my ass to the laundry room?”

“…I guess you’re right.” Eddie softens at the reminder of Richie’s response to the prodigious meltdown he’d had over a welt on his calf. “You’d really do it, wouldn’t you?”

Richie is torn between letting Eddie believe that his intentions are largely sexually motivated and not a symptom of the mortifying depths of his feelings. “The lengths I go to, to get at your length.”

Oh well. Sorry, emotional intelligence – maybe you’ll get your turn next time.

“I don’t know,” Eddie hedges, conflicted. “Even if we clean up after, we’d still be breaking his trust. This is his _home_ , Rich.”

“So if he says his guests have to wear pink triangles, you’ll do it?”

Eddie’s fickle softness evaporates in an instant. “That’s not funny.”

“No, I agree, it isn’t funny. It’s an egregious violation of our rights. We can’t let him set parameters on our love.” Richie panics over his spontaneous word choice. “—Lives! Love-lives.”

Eddie’s unmoved expression implies that Richie’s powers of persuasion are coming up short, and that Eddie hasn’t entirely outgrown the pack instinct to defer to Bill. “No. No, we’re better than that. We can respect Bill’s home, because we are not a couple of horny gays that can’t abstain from sex for four days.”

Richie pouts. “You keep using the word ‘we’. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

=

Eddie is noticeably delicate with Richie after essentially guaranteeing the blueness of his balls for the next hundred hours of his life. Eddie washes the cutlery and disposes of used containers on his own, not once dropping a pointed comment about Richie growing algae on his slumped back, parked idly on the living room sofa.

After the dinner table is sanitized to his satisfaction, Eddie makes his way to Richie, plopping down next to him. Richie’s spirit lifts like a Pavlovian response as soon as Eddie enters his vicinity. The manic mood swing is enough to give him vertigo. That torrent of dopamine reminds him that, at the end of the day, each second of Eddie-time is a fucking treasure. Non-sweaty Eddie-times give Richie identical gratification, barring his dick’s outlier opinion.

It gets even better when Eddie calls attention to a framed collage hanging behind them. It’s a gift to Bill that Ben spearheaded, made up of polaroids, photobooth strips, and yearbook cutouts that they scrounged together.

Richie vaults over the couch and reaches the wall of interest in one king-size lope. He zeroes in on one picture in particular. “Look! Look at this wee shrunken creature! It’s an even more miniature Eddie!”

“We’re all miniature at that age, dipshit.”

Richie’s squeaking with the unprecedented number of octaves that his voice climbs. “Too fucking cute, this itty bitty mini-marshmallow baby, I just want to SQUISH HIM.”

“Stop that, you sound unhinged!” Eddie crawls around the sofa, perching himself on the edge of the backrest. Even from a distance, he easily spots a photo of Richie to pick on, and it sends him into fits. He points at Richie’s yearbook portrait from sophomore year, with his too-wide smile and his Chia Pet hair. “Hah, Richie! I can’t believe you invented the shit-eating grin in the 90’s. Nobody thought to make you retake that picture?”

Richie could barely contain his own laughter long enough to say, “They did! Like five times!” He has an oddly vivid memory of Eddie moments before this picture was taken – that mini-marshmallow baby that dragged Richie to a broom closet so that he could marvel at the glow-in-the-dark bands on his braces. Richie’s cheeks had gotten so sore from grinning non-stop.

They don’t dwell too long on Mike, Beverly and Bill’s pictures – that would be an exercise in morbid futility. Those three reprobates took one glance at their friends’ uphill battle with puberty and went, _nah, miss me with that awkward phase nonsense_.

Ben isn’t in as many photos as the others, his discomfort with his appearance aggravated by a lack of access to binders, let alone ones that catered to his shape. Stan is likewise MIA in many a memento, allergic to memorializing himself in any shape or form. One of Stan’s rare photographic appearances unfortunately comes in the form of an almost unrecognizable teenager with slicked back hair and a bereft expression. “Who is that? Whose photo is that??” Eddie howls.

Richie likewise convulses in giggles. “Didn’t Stan rip out his page in all our yearbooks? How’d this survive the great purge of ’92?”

“Oh, what the fuck? Who added that one? The one below Bizzaro World Stan.” Eddie’s squinting at a photo that bears two figures with their heads bent as they read from the same comic book, perfectly molded to each other’s contours.

Richie quiets down correspondingly. “Huh. Who snapped that in the first place? Why am I even asking, of course it was Bev, that voyeur. We aren’t even doing anything interesting here.”

Eddie, predictably, has a differing opinion. “We’re nearly in each other’s laps.”

“We aren’t, though. Even if we were, it’d only be worth commemorating if you were wearing your mmrrmph!” Richie catches the throw pillow that caught him right on the kisser. “Listen, if you want to gag me—”

Eddie doesn’t bother reaching for more indoor décor to weaponize. The promise of bodily harm in his eyes proves more effective than anything he could lob at Richie.

Richie obliges and resumes studying the picture. He snickers, noticing the expanse of empty space on the bench that younger-Eddie shunned in favor of crowding up against Richie. “Damn, you were really all up in my space. How did I not see how bad you had it for me?”

“You didn’t know how bad you had it for me, either,” Eddie points out.

“I mean, that’s just. Not incorrect.”

“And now, you’re convinced that there’s something wrong with me for liking you. When the truth is, you’re the one that needs to wake up, because you can’t see how lucky I am that you like me back.”

Richie pivots, rotating like a deteriorated merry-go-round. “Nwhadda?” He tries, too bowled over to English.

“I’ve wanted this for a long time.” Eddie’s arms are crossed, chin elevated, a paragon of defiance save for the sincerity cradling his eyes. “I won’t let you make light of it.”

Oh, the audacity of this man.

The utter nerve to remind Richie how besotted he is, so much so that it’s on the verge of manifesting inside his chest and overflowing out into the open. Richie gets frantic with the urge to submerge Eddie in it, in words and gestures that typically have no place in a fledgling relationship. And he just might. Maybe he’ll get to it as soon as his brain regains its original structural integrity.

For now, it’s a miracle that his limbs are able to collaborate and get him to the spot right in front of Eddie, standing within a whisper’s distance. “Well, that was nice while it lasted.”

Eddie regards him warily. “What was?” He leans back, not to pull away, but just enough to put more of his weight onto the back of the couch. The way that he parts his knees, giving room for Richie to wedge himself between them, suggests that he’s got an inkling of what Richie meant.

Richie crawls into the space that Eddie’s inviting him into. “The last bit of willpower I had to keep myself from doing this.” He ducks down, finding Eddie’s lips, prodding along its seam in a careful, imploring drag.

=

“Should we be doing this?” Eddie wonders rather belatedly, considering they’re both down to their boxers, writhing on Bill’s bed. “I mean, most of his rules are bullshit, but nobody deserves to have their bedroom desecrated by their friends?”

“Yeah, but that’s the same guy making you tend his house after impugning your culinary skills and imposing your celibacy. And this is bigger than that. Remember, Eds – this is for gay rights.”

“Mmm. Yeah. Fuck Bill.” Eddie kicks off his underwear that snagged on his foot, and Richie takes the chance to settle between Eddie’s legs.

“Yes! Fuck Bill metaphorically and fuck Richie literally.” Richie plants his elbows on either side of Eddie’s torso and wastes no time savoring the skin made available to him.

Eddie doesn’t even get to bitch about Richie referring to himself in third person, too busy mewling as Richie runs his tongue from his collarbone to his neck, grazing gently with his teeth before following it with a tender press of his lips. When his eager mouth finds a nipple, Eddie’s hand buries itself in Richie’s hair and tugs. Richie has to twist his fingers into the sheets to keep them from shooting straight to his groin like they want to.

Eddie appeals for “lower, _lower_ , please”, and Richie is powerless to deny him. He nibbles down Eddie’s bellybutton and his lower abdomen, obsessing over the textures he finds along the way. Eddie puts Richie’s self-control in peril when he reaches down to claw at his scalp, throat catching with noises of a man getting methodically ruined.

By the time Richie gets Eddie in his mouth, he doesn’t have it in him to tease. He sucks on the head once before sliding his lips as far down the shaft as he can reach. Eddie twitches and bucks up, and Richie revels in how it chokes him, compelling him to slobber.

“Rich, _your mouth_ ,” Eddie sings out, a one-man gospel choir.

His senses invaded, Richie hollows his cheeks, bobbing his head with such single-minded relish that he barely notices a plastic surface touch his cheek. It takes his brain some time to register that Eddie is gasping at him to let go, but he does as he’s told as soon as he works out the words’ meanings.

Richie opens his eyes and blurrily finds Eddie prodding him with a small jar. His heart stops from incredulous anticipation as he registers what Eddie’s asking for. Before Richie bursts into grateful tears, Eddie bails him out, saying, “Don’t use too much. It’s expensive.”

Of course Eddie is lucid enough to remember that. Richie doesn’t hesitate to offer, “I’ll buy you a new one.” He’s not scrimping on prep at their age.

“You don’t— no, it’s fine. it’s um. Over two hundred dollars.”

“Two hun— excuse me but what the fuck are you lathering on your skin, melted gold?!” Richie doesn’t skip a beat, though, grabbing the jar from Eddie and twisting the lid off with a flick of the wrist. “It’s fine, send me the Amazon link.”

“I do not shop on fucking… Amazon…” Eddie trails off, swollen pupils transfixed on Richie’s fingers as he coats them generously.

Richie nudges a slicked finger around Eddie’s entrance while he mouths at his inner thigh. Eddie reacts with a soft “hmmh” that gradually gets louder as Richie starts to ease his finger in. Eddie is a squirming mess when Richie gets him back in his mouth and has two fingers pumping into him.

After a couple of tries, Eddie manages to pry Richie off, tenderly wiping at his dampened stubble. He leads Richie upward, kneading their mouths together and letting Richie return the salt he’d left on his tongue. He tells Richie to put a condom on and promises to keep opening himself up.

Richie readies himself as perfunctorily as possible, not letting his fingers linger as he stretches a condom over his straining erection. He glances at Eddie and bites his lips to contain what was sure to be an undignified outburst.

“Keep doing that if you want this to end in the next ten seconds,” Richie warns. Eddie ignores him, choosing instead to continue being sinfully hot, one hand fingering himself and the other palming his cock. Richie grabs Eddie’s wrist, the one twisting to fuck himself on his own fingers. “I won’t even get inside you, Eddie, I’m not kidding,” he plainly whines.

Eddie groans at Richie’s husky admission. “Want to ride you,” he growls, getting up and shoving Richie into an upright position.

Eddie splays himself over Richie’s thighs, reaches behind himself to take Richie’s arousal in his hand. He guides it so the length of it splits his cheeks and makes them both cry out. He backs into the slippery heat of it, ravenous for friction, teasing them both without meaning to. Eddie’s hips only still when Richie tightens his grip on them. Eddie’s eyes flutter closed and he descends, slowly impaling himself onto Richie’s cock.

Richie curses when he’s enveloped, inch by excruciating inch, in incredible, barely yielding warmth. He’d be worried about having blown his load too early if his cock weren’t so rigid that it ached. Eddie grabs Richie’s shoulders for leverage and picks himself up, a few more inches above Richie’s lap, then fills himself again. He gradually stuffs more of Richie in with each repetition, gyrating in circular motions until he finally bottoms out.

“Ahh, Eddie, you’re—” Richie’s throat closes up when Eddie clamps around him just so. “Take it, ride it the way you need.” He exhales loudly through his nose, laying kisses up and down Eddie’s neck, his clavicle, wherever he can reach, desperate for a diversion that isn’t Eddie’s snug heat. When he sighs into Eddie’s ear, it makes the other man shudder and hold on tighter, and Richie nearly loses himself yet again.

Eddie must notice Richie shaking even worse than he is, and he laughs despite himself. Richie moans, unable to stop from jerking up that time. Eddie gasps and rolls his own hips to meet Richie’s, only getting the first syllable of Richie’s name out.

“Like this?” Richie takes aim and repeats his movement, adding force when he pushes up one more time, eliciting a drawn-out whine. “How’s that?”

Eddie lets out a litany of incoherent groans as Richie moves in him. He rocks vigorously back and forth on Richie’s lap, making his cock brush the sweetest place inside of him. “Like that, yeah—you’re so deep, fuck.”

Richie helps him out, wrapping a hand over Eddie’s, stroking that heavy, dripping cock in time with sharp snaps of his hips. “So fucking wet from riding me. Betcha Bill couldn’t get you like this.”

“Don’t talk. About our friends. While you’re inside me!” Eddie bounces wantonly down onto Richie’s cock and up into their joined hands, rhythm faltering, desperation getting the better of him.

Eddie clamps around Richie, dizzyingly tight, and it’s too much. Richie pulls out, only to maneuver Eddie to his side. He crowds up behind Eddie so his front lines up to Eddie’s back, hooks one of those stupidly sexy legs over his arm, giving himself more access to shove into that willing body once again.

The answering exclamation from Eddie rings out in the room. He grinds back, burying Richie further inside. Richie wedges a hand between Eddie’s neck and the mattress, extending out to interlock their fingers. They strain their necks, seeking the other’s lips, neither heeding the slight ache from the angle. Richie pries his mouth open, trying his level best to delve deep enough that Eddie becomes his permanent address.

They have to break off for breath for a second or so, and Richie hears too-short snippets of Eddie’s voice, drunken with pleasure, almost torturously so. “You feel so good, so fucking good, don’t stop.”

“Fuck, how are you real?” Richie’s mind clouds and he hitches Eddie’s leg a little higher, hand coming up underneath his knee, driving hard into him. He wants to tell Eddie to come because he can’t last much longer, but his words come out disjointed. He wills it to happen, furiously dicking into Eddie until his thoughts white out and he’s grunting, filling his condom where he’s crammed into Eddie for all he’s worth.

Richie lets out a whimper, thrusts losing a bit of their resolve. Eddie reaches behind himself to grab Richie’s ass, holding him in place. “Ah! Ah, fuck!” Richie yelps, oversensitive, but he’s still hard and boiling hot and he can tell that Eddie is so, so close. Eddie’s hips undulate to grind Richie right against his prostate, finding the angle that makes him thrash mindlessly.

Richie cries out at the continued overstimulation, forces himself to slant forward amidst his body’s involuntary convulsing, shaky hands tugging at Eddie’s leaking cock. Eddie throws his hips back, swallowing Richie to the root, and chokes and wails as he releases into Richie’s hand.

“Fuck.” Eddie leans into Richie’s chest as satiation permeates through them, hand drifting up over his shoulder to card through Richie’s hair.

“You okay?” Richie can’t help but check as he leans into his touch.

“Are you?” Eddie returns. “I’m. That was. Fuck.” He huffs out a laugh. “You’re incredible. I love you.”

Richie shudders. Hearing those words, feeling them gust over his skin, is nearly more satisfying than his orgasm.

Richie intends to do the right thing, to return the sentiment in earnest. He does his damnedest not to say that Eddie sure _came with extra feels_. He opens his mouth for the sole purpose of forming the words he’d just received, and somehow “I know” leaps out on their behalf.

Thankfully, Eddie is too blissed out to be fazed. “Your Han Solo’s about as believable as you picking up on my feelings.”

“Hey, that was Richie of the past. Upgraded Richie took the hint when you let me use your bougie as fuck lotion to oil up your ass.”

Eddie nuzzles Richie’s jaw. “That’s what clued you in? Not the fact that I used it because I wanted to fit your ridiculous dick inside me?”

Richie momentarily short-circuits, spine tingling at Eddie’s careless, filthy praise. “Holy shit. Do you talk to all the boys like that, or just your boything?”

“Nope. ’S how I talk to my person.”

Richie vibrates with the need to squeal in triumph: _I’m! His! PERSON!_ But as he’s learned multiple times, there’s only so much character development one can have in a short span of time, and he proves this again when he hears himself say, “Bill?”

Eddie nips his chin before facing him fully. “Nuh-uh. You’re my person. And I’m yours.”

With a cleverness that takes him by surprise, Richie responds by capturing _his!_ _PERSON!’s_ lips in his. They negotiate for space, then control, in each other’s mouths, all too happy to cede both. If Eddie notices Richie’s hushed and muffled success at take two (and three and four) of confessing his feelings (“ _I love you, I love you, I love you”_ ), he doesn’t stop to acknowledge it.

Richie’s just fine with that.

For a while, nothing matters. Not the unsung moment of his emotional availability. Not the sheets he’ll have to launder when the afterglow lightens. Not even his standing with his ex-ex-friends – except for the one that’s currently kissing him back.

=

A week later, Bill sends out a PSA to the group to never, under any circumstances, allow Eddie and Richie to house sit for them.

Bill doesn’t receive a ton of gratitude for his troubles. In its place, he gets Beverly’s mock-bewilderment (“so you didn’t mean to offer your place up as a honeymoon suite?”) and Mike’s genuine one (“I honestly don’t know what you were expecting”). Ben bucks the trend with a possibly unrelated string of rainbow hearts, while Stan declines to make any effort to respond.

Eddie won’t defend the indefensible, so Richie takes it upon himself to address Bill’s smears. “Imagine needing your pals to spell out something so obvious for you. Sorry guys, I can’t relate.”


End file.
